{"id":512,"date":"2010-04-05T11:37:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T16:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cheeseloverca.wordpress.com\/?p=512"},"modified":"2010-04-05T11:37:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T16:37:07","slug":"ruth-klahsen-leads-a-renaissance-at-monforte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/2010\/04\/05\/ruth-klahsen-leads-a-renaissance-at-monforte\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth Klahsen leads a renaissance at Monforte"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>
We interview Ruth Klahsen of Monforte Dairy at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cheese is remarkable, the woman behind the cheese even more so.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, the cheese. Toscano was the first cheese Ruth Klahsen made when she overcame considerable odds to open Monforte Dairy<\/a> in Stratford, Ontario, six years ago.<\/p>\n

Toscano is one of the oldest cheeses in recorded history, going back some 2,500 years in Italy. The full name is Pecorino Toscano<\/a>, from \u201cpecora,\u201d Italian for sheep. At Monforte, Ruth uses pasteurized sheep\u2019s milk from Mennonite farmers to make the pressed cheese that\u2019s aged a minimum of six months.<\/p>\n

The result is a rustic, earthy taste that lingers long after the swallow. You can taste the farm in the natural rind (which requires two brushings per week during the aging process). A lovely aroma announces it\u2019s a sheep cheese even before you cut into Toscano.<\/p>\n

No wonder it has become Monforte\u2019s most successful cheese and a favourite of chefs for the way it grates nicely over pasta or rice. With a dab of fig jam, it works well on a cheese plate, too.<\/p>\n

Now, the woman. Ruth Klahsen<\/a> describes herself as \u201cjust an old broad who had a mid-life crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to 2004, she was a chef in Stratford, at Rundles, Old Prune and the Stratford Festival\u2019s Green Room. Her mid-life crisis was that more than anything, she wanted to make cheese. Thus, it came to pass that she mortgaged everything she owned to raise $250,000 to start a cheesemaking business with Sebastiano Monforte, an expert in the cheese arts. Unfortunately, just before the business was to open, Sebastiano quit. Then, $160,000 worth of cheese had to be discarded because of bacterial issues.<\/p>\n

With only $2,000 left in the bank, Ruth soldiered on alone. She selected Toscano out of a book on cheese because she liked its appearance, figured out how to make it, and, well, the rest is history that four years later led Toronto Life magazine to declare that Monforte Dairy \u201cmakes the best cheeses in Ontario. Full stop.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruth proved to be as inventive in making cheese as she was accomplished but her greatest challenge lay ahead.<\/p>\n

In 2008, her landlord raised the rent to a level that was simply uneconomical for an artisan cheesemaker. No matter where she turned, Ruth found dead-ends and eventually closed down operations.<\/p>\n

Undaunted, she launched Monforte Renaissance 2010<\/a> to raise funds for a new dairy using an innovative model known as Community Shared Agriculture<\/a> (CSA). In a CSA project, subscribers prepay for product, thus, providing financing.<\/p>\n

Monforte has three subscription levels, $200, $500 and $1,000, whereby supporters will receive $250, $750 and $1,500 of Monforte cheese over five years.<\/p>\n

Says Ruth on her website: \u201cWe think this is a revolutionary concept. Monforte Renaissance 2010 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to affect directly the politics of food in Ontario. By participating, you\u2019re helping establish a business model that should spearhead meaningful growth in micro-production, making it a more viable way of life for farmers and shepherds while providing consumers with higher quality products. If we can make this work\u2014and we\u2019re confident we can\u2014Renaissance 2010 might just open the door to a new day for farmers and consumers alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renaissance 2010 is indeed working. To date, 791 subscribers have purchased subscriptions totaling $357,500.<\/p>\n

The target is $500,000 from 1,000 subscribers by April 25 when the Monforte Hootenanny for supporters takes place at the Stratford Festival Theatre Lobby.<\/p>\n

Click here to sign up<\/a>. We already have.<\/p>\n

\u2014Georgs Kolesnikovs<\/em><\/p>\n

Georgs Kolesnikovs is Cheese-Head-in-Chief at CheeseLover.ca.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cheese is remarkable, the woman behind the cheese even more so. First, the cheese. Toscano was the first cheese Ruth Klahsen made when she overcame considerable odds to open Monforte Dairy in Stratford, Ontario, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296,358,392],"tags":[],"brand":[],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monforte-dairy","category-ruth-klahsen","category-toscano"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheeselover.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/brand?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}